The Hatter and the March Hare, deep in nonsensical debate, both using the dormouse’s head as a convenient elbow‑rest. The dormouse, half‑asleep and wholly unimpressed, gazes up with the weary patience of someone who knows this tea party isn’t getting any saner. A 7x5 inch drawing, unframed and delightfully deranged. Check out my art dept. on eBay!

I can't disguise my excitement about the new book that I have had the great pleasure in illustrating! I mean, yes- it's a heartwarming, wonderful story: tick! And there's an animal involved: tick! But I can't lie- it feels super exciting to illustrate a book created by a celebrity!  The book: Kat and Brandy, the author: Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt- New York Times bestselling author, mother, and host of BDA Baby. Animal advocate- Ambassador for Best Friends Animal Society (bestfriends.org) and the ASPCA (aspca.org). She is also a Global Ambassador for the Special Olympics. The daughter of the actor and politician, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and journalist and author, Maria Shriver. Married to actor Chris Pratt. How's that! Are you impressed? ☺️ I was also stoked right up to my eyeballs...no, wait...to the top of my enormously tall imaginary hat of hopeful expectations, that the publisher was Penguin US! AND lucky enough to be able to work with the very patient and sweet and brilliant- Taylor Abatiell - assistant art director at Penguin Random House. I so hope I get to work with Taylor again at some time, she was wonderful all the way through.

Kat and Brandy is based on the real-life relationship between the author and her childhood pony, Brandy. The story tells how Kat has been pony-mad for as long as she can remember... she practically grew up in a pair of jodhpurs. But after falling from her pony, her confidence took a tumble too and she could not bring herself to ride again. Then along comes Brandy, a rescue horse with a wary eye, a lovely white coat, and a scar that hints at past troubles. Kat sees something of herself in Brandy, and bit by bit, with quiet patience and a lot of heart, they help each other refind their confidence. The book includes a letter to the reader, about how special relationships with animals can lift our hearts, and sometimes help us face fears we thought were far too big for us. 

Dulce como un te quiero written by Marina Montero and published by Penguin Random House España. ISBN: 978-84-488-3941-3

Here are the illustrations I created for the book back in 2014

El oso chiquitín se desperezó aún adormilado y bostezó dos veces. Olfateó el aire buscando el aroma del desayuno y fue entonces cuando se preguntó por primera vez qué era aquel olor que le envolvía allá donde estuviese.
 El oso chiquitín y el oso grandote salieron de la madriguera en busca de aquel olor tan especial. Y en el bosque olía a resina, y a miel, y a avellanas y a lluvia, y a fuego... pero ninguno de esos era el olor que buscaba el oso chiquitín.
 Más tarde, cuando la luna asome por el horizonte y el oso chiquitín se  acurruque soñoliento en los cálidos brazos del oso grandote, descubrirá que el aroma del amor es dulce como un te quiero.

English translation:

Here are the character sketches I did for It's Snorey Time. I think that it's a real shame that these characters weren't carried over into a book series.

Happy New Year to you, whoever you are! Let's crack on with the blog posts for 2021!
​
Character study sketches number five- Charlie and Farley (Farley's the pooch).
There were two Charlie and Farley books. 'The Temple of the Monkey King' and 'The Island of Dinosaurs'. Now, sadly, out-of-print. I'd love to work on a title like this again, it was so much fun hiding all the dinosaurs and the monkeys throughout the two books. 

​Number four of my character studies for published books. Today I've plumped for the crazy duo- Big Brown Bear and Little Koala Bear from 'If Big Can... I can' written by Beth Shoshan. It was published way back in 2006 by Meadowside Children's Books. My first picture book gig! I can remember how anxious and excited I was at that time. I'd never even attempted to illustrate a full picture book before, but I struggled through with the help of the hugely talented Mark Mills. Mark was art director at Meadowside at that time, just before he left and set up Plum Pudding Illustration... my agents.

Number three of my character design series of posts, today it's squirrels for the title: 'Welcome to the World!' written by Helen Foster James and published by Sleeping Bear Press.
Although this is an American book, I’ve based all of the characters on European wild animals, because I really wanted to do red squirrels. They are such lovely colourful little creatures with tufty ears... great fun to draw and paint. ​

​As well as character designs, I sometimes have to show the publisher how I imagine the surroundings will look. Some things were changed in the final art, but the basic ideas remained.

​If you'd like to purchase a copy of the book you can find links here...
I'll be selling off some of the book's pencil drawings plus these pencil sketches in the new year. If you subscribe to my newsletter email (you'll find the form on this page) I'll let you know as soon as they are available to buy from my online store.
If you’d like to know about new posts, new books or new items in my store you can subscribe to my email newsletter (you’ll find the sign up form on this page) and follow me on Pinterest.

​Here's the second in my 'Character Studies' posts. Today: the bear family from 'Hush Little Baby' published by Tiger Tales way back in 2007.
At the start of most projects I have to show the publisher (and myself) how I'm going to portray the main characters in the book.
​I seem to remember, when I attempted these sketches, I limited the time I could spend over each page... timed myself against the clock, because I didn't want to obsess over them too much. I have a really bad habit of spending hours trying to perfect characters and end up with them looking stiff and lacking any life. So, I half closed my eyes, concentrated hard and went for it! They are extremely rough, but I managed to create a cute ursine family that I could work with.

Here are a couple of the finished illustrations. You can see I stuck pretty much to those first rushed sketches. Back then I was working in watercolour and colour pencils on rough watercolour paper. ​

​When I start a project for a publisher I first have to come up with a few character​ designs. Over the next few weeks I thought I'd post some of my favourites. Today it's dragons! 
The book: 'Deri Dan Y Daliwr Dreigiau' by Haf Llewelyn, a welsh language book. You can find out more here>